


to kingdom come

by stardustandfantasies



Category: Padz and Friends (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 09:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15603714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandfantasies/pseuds/stardustandfantasies
Summary: It rains at the end of the world.





	to kingdom come

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own PAF. Title is from a song of the same name by _The Civil Wars_.

It is raining again.

Rain brings with its fall the promise of rejuvenation and a new life. The thought that it rains at the end of the world used to be ludicrous. And yet it does rain. Even Naharis had long lost count since It happened (about a year ago, but it feels like ages, and at any rate keeping track of the time is pointless), but it should be around November or December now.

Around him, green has started sprouting—grass and moss growing amidst the constant rainfall, surrounded by the ghosts of crumbled edifices. The contrast used to be jarring, even painful. Weak wild vegetations thrive in this ruined world, while massive buildings are reduced to remnants and the once most powerful species is nearly wiped out and his friends and family fall, their eyes no longer laughing and mouths no longer smiling, their corpses limp before him.

It doesn’t bother him anymore, though. At least not when he’s awake. (In nightmares, things are different.) It’s easier to deal with the After if he doesn’t think about the Before.

And he has something more important on his mind at this moment.

Bram.

“Haris,” Bram’s trembling voice, barely more than a rasping whisper, breaks the silence and Naharis’ train of thought. “Am I–are  _ we  _ going to last?”

To choose optimism and watch it wither painfully, or to kill it right away? Naharis ponders on this for a moment, but before he can answer, Bram chortles and answers his own question:

“Obviously no.”

“Hush. You need to rest.”

They fall into silence again. Two men at a precipice where their fate ends in a barren, destroyed world, an almost collapsing roof shielding them from the rain.

Bram’s eyes are half-lidded; Naharis could almost count all of his eyelashes. Bram’s high cheekbones and distinct jawline are sharp and strong, but at this moment there’s something exquisite, almost delicate about them.

Naharis is no artist. He doesn’t know how to be poetic; he understands only machines and weapons and survival. But at this moment of vulnerability, he knows there is something beautiful in the way Bram looks simultaneously imposing and breakable, in the way his pale, marble-like skin is cruelly juxtaposed with the blackened, decaying, pus-lined wound gaping on his left leg.

Everything is more beautiful when one is doomed.

They  _ are  _ doomed.

Bram is gradually, painfully losing more and more time. They have to do something about the infection, but there is no doctor, no medicine—no one, nothing. Their best bet would be to do away with the bad leg, but the only weapons they have are covered with dirt and grime and God knows whose blood.

Perhaps—

“Haris,” Bram suddenly calls his name in between sharp, hitched breaths.

Bram looks up and the distance between their faces shrinks. His cheeks are ablaze with fever, and his eyes are looking straight into Naharis’. Those eyes looked big in the darkness, glowing deliriously with the light of a dying star, bright but broken, soon to explode.

Cupping the other man’s face in his quivering hands, Bram says, “I love you.”

“I thought it’s your leg that is injured, not your head.”

Bram laughs, although his laugh turns into cough halfway.

Naharis wraps his arms around Bram a little tighter and pulls him a little closer. Bram winces a bit at that, but he smiles and closes the already small distance between their lips. His lips are cold, but Naharis takes them anyway, deepening the kiss, as if he desperately wants to breathe life into the other.

Bram leans his head on the other man’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Naharis wraps a blanket around themselves and watches him fall asleep, before he too succumbs to a dreamless, restless slumber.

When he wakes up, Bram is still asleep and his forehead is still burning when Naharis feels it.

Naharis takes his revolver, closes his eyes, and pulls it. He then gathers his remained belongings and leaves.

It is raining again.


End file.
